Vidhyut K.
Mumbai
dtd: 21st Aug 06
While most of the alarm that was evident last over 'bird flu' has been by and large absent this year, it takes a while to figure that the dreaded sickness has been sneaking ever so slowly around.
What was seen last year was mass hysteria and an unnatural and hasty response to the death of chickens and humans alike. While chickens were mercilessly killed, humans were put in quarantine.
It seemed to have worked then largely helped by the weather. Wherein summer heat made the spread of the virus slower as most influenza viruses dont survive or thrive in the heat.
But now with the return of cold and humid weather the virus will have ample fodder to propagate and spread around.
As reports out of Indonesia indicate a woman died of bird flu in a village where authorities are now investigating the possibility of more than one human cases of the H5N1 virus.
The woman identified as Euis Lina, 35, died of the disease on Thursday at a hospital. The confirmation of the presence of H5N1 virus was confirmed by a laboratory test.
Previously her 9 year old daughter had also died leading to fears that it was bird flu too. Tests have still to be performed to assertain this.
There were fresh cases with 60 yr old man, 16 yr old boy and 4 yr old girl being hospitalised with bird flu symptoms.
Human cases involving family members or members of the same community/village raises fears of a human to human transmission. Although not yet confirmed except for the case wherein 7 members of a family in Indonesia died of the disease in May, there have not been confirmed cases of human to human transmission.
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1 comment:
Sorry to have to tell you this, but the Bird Flu had never "gone away" in the first place!
It has been with us all along and is currently growing at more than twice of the rate of the last year.
It may not be a "Pandemic" as yet, but there is an increasing possibility of it actually mutating in to a human virus. That would be a major threat to all of us every where.
There have been 143 deaths related to the Bird Flu virus to date, that we know of.
The last 3 human fatalities resulting from the Bird Flu virus, were announced last week!
We expect more such announcements shortly.
The point is that this is a BIRD virus and is not supposed to be killing humans!
I hope that the powers that be, are taking this global threat to us seriously enough, to try and prepare for the worst case scenario.
I am sure that every one hopes that this virus does turn out to be nothing more than a "a lot of the hype".
It would be very foolish to not assume a worst case scenario though.
I would recommend that you look up some serious and focused sources of news, regarding the bird flu virus.
We have today added the "The return of 'Bird Flu'" entry of your blog, to The-Best-Bird-Flu-Blogs section of our site, in order to be able to provide a balance against those with an opposing view.
The-Best-Bird-Flu-Blogs-Team.
www.birdflubreakingnews.com
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